Mumbai:
The Mumbai Police have arrested a member of the Ravi Pujari gang. This comes after three men of the same gang were arrested last week.
Abdul Karim Latif Shaikh, who has been arrested and sent to police custody till September 12, is an active member of the Ravi Pujari gang and a history sheeter. He had allegedly arranged for a vehicle for the men who planned to kill a crime reporter.
The arrests were made after the police uncovered a plot to murder a crime reporter of a leading English daily in Mumbai during investigations into the firing at film producer Karim Morani's residence in Juhu.
According to the police the scribe's photograph and a map of his Nariman Point office was recovered from three men arrested earlier.
According to sources in the Mumbai Police, the gangster who is desperately trying to make space for himself in the Mumbai underworld was upset that an article by the reporter referred to him as 'chindi chor' or 'petty thief'.
The three men arrested last week were identified as Madanchand Sonkar alias Francis, Ashutosh Verma and Rambahadur Chavan. They are residents of Nallasopara on the outskirts of Mumbai and were allegedly hired by gangster Ravi Pujari to bump off the reporter.
After the recent spate of threat calls to Bollywood celebrities the Mumbai Police has assured the film industry that there is no reason to fear the underworld.
Ravi Pujari was suspected to be behind the threat calls and the police had provided extra security to actors like Shah Rukh Khan, Boman Irani and others including producer Karim Morani.
In the 1990s and the mid-2000s, the Mumbai Police took on the underworld often resorting to encounter killings. This reduced the influence of the underworld to a great extent. Most of the extortionists and dons fled and set up base in safe havens abroad.
P S Pasricha, Former Commissioner of Police told NDTV, "Most of the criminal like Dawood and Chota Rajan are lying low these days. Now people like Ravi Pujari want to come into the market. Unless he creates a sense of that fear in the minds of the common man, how will he succeed?"
Police say, once in a while the underworld does try to make a comeback but the police are capable of tackling elements like Ravi Pujari, who have limited influence.